1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a content delivering method suitable for delivering stream-reproducing content files such as moving picture, still picture, and music program files delivered from a server to a user terminal unit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A service that provides content files containing moving pictures, still pictures, music programs, and so forth through a network is becoming attractive. In such a conventional content delivering service, when a user purchases content, he or she accesses a particular server that delivers the content through a user terminal unit and downloads a file containing the desired content through the network.
In recent years, servers that deliver content such as moving pictures, still pictures, music programs, and so forth have been used on a network. When such a service is used, a user terminal unit is connected to a server that delivers content through the network. When the user terminal unit is connected to such a server, the names of various content and data about the various content that the server provides are displayed. When the user purchases particular content, the user terminal unit transmits a download request for the desired content to the server.
When the server receives the download request for the desired content, the server retrieves the file of the desired content from a predetermined library and transfers the retrieved file to the user terminal unit through the network. The file containing the content is stored to a hard disk drive or the like of the user terminal unit. Alternatively, the user terminal unit may reproduce a content file transmitted from the server on a real time basis (this operation is referred to as streaming reproducing operation).
When the user receives content through the network, he or she can operate the user terminal unit so as to perform various reproducing functions such as stop operation, forward skipping operation and backward skipping operation. However, this allows the user to selectively view various portions of the content. Thus, the user may skip over messages or commercials that are an important portion of the content from view point of the information provider. Thus, the information provider suffers from the availability of such functions.